Testimony at BP oil spill trial targets response

FILE - In this file photo made Oct. 25, 2007, the BP (British Petroleum) logo is seen at a gas station in Washington.

NEW ORLEANS — An employee of the company that owned the doomed Deepwater Horizon drilling rig says he was surprised when BP scrapped his team's design to stop the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.

Robert Turlak, a Transocean Ltd. manager, testified Tuesday at a federal trial that is focusing on BP's response to the April 2010 well blowout. BP's trial adversaries argue the company could have sealed the blown-out well much sooner if it had employed a capping strategy that Turlak and others had devised. It was ready for installation in early June.

BP ultimately used a capping stack to stop the spill July 15 after several other methods failed.